The present invention pertains to a life support equipment carriage for use with intensive care patients or other critical care patients.
Carriages for life support equipment are well known. These carriages typically include a pole extending upwardly from a base. The pole supports an equipment hanger for IV bags and the like above the patient. The IV bags and transducers are suspended on the equipment hanger or pole, and fluid supply tubes extend from the IV bags and transducers to the patient. The base of the carriage includes wheels on which the carriage rolls to facilitate transport of the equipment with the patient. Such carriages may be interconnected with a hospital bed or gurney, and may include more than one pole.
These carriages are often utilized with intensive care patients who require a wide variety of equipment, including intravenous (IV) bags, transducers, monitors, oxygen tanks, and other devices necessary to sustain and monitor the patient. Such carriages are used with intensive care patients because these patients are typically moved frequently for testing, operations and other treatment. Accordingly, at least a portion of the life support equipment necessary for sustaining and monitoring the patient must be moved with the patient.
A difficulty encountered by attendants, including doctors and nurses, is supporting the equipment in an orderly manner on a number of poles which move independently of one another. In an emergency, hospital personnel must move quickly, since a delay in providing assistance to a patient can result in a more serious injury to the patient. In this volatile environment, independently moving carriages are often moved around to improve attendant access to the patient. Such movement may cause the fluid supply tubes and the electrical cables associated with the equipment supported on the carriages to become entangled. Thereafter, the tubes and cables extending from the equipment supported on the carriages must be untangled before the patient can be moved or equipment can be removed from the carriage. This is particularly problematic if an IV bag must be changed, or if an intensive care patient is to be transported with only a portion of the life support equipment. Thus, an attendant is often required to expend a great deal of time and effort untangling the tubes before the bag can be changed, or the patient transported.
Another difficulty with transducer holders for such carriages is that they do not adequately accommodate movement of the patient. Transducers are typically mounted directly to the carriage pole, and connected to the patient via a fluid supply tube. Movement by the patient creates tension on the supply tube between the transducer and the patient. This tension can disconnect the transducer from the patient, resulting in contamination of the transducer fluid. Additionally, the care provider must be very careful not to create tension on the transducer when moving the patient. This may require that an additional person be present to hold the transducer while the patient is being moved to or from a bed, gurney or surgical table.
Yet another difficulty with existing equipment carriages is the position of devices hung from the equipment hanger associated therewith. Equipment hangers typically have an "X" configuration, wherein each of the four arms supports devices, or an incline configuration, wherein each of the two arms of the hanger supports a device. In either configuration, it is difficult to access all of the arm's of the equipment hangers or to read the labels of bags facing away from the attendant. Even if the attendant places IV bags over one another in order to have the bags on one side, it is difficult to read the labels of, and to replace, the bags hung behind other bags. A further problem encountered with these systems is that the contents of the bags may be contaminated from all the required handling when replacing one or more of the bags hung over one another.